0:00:02 > 0:00:04This programme contains strong language.
0:00:04 > 0:00:07- This is this, right?- No, this is trying to be this and failing.
0:00:07 > 0:00:10It's not failing to be this, it's... This is this. THIS is this.
0:00:10 > 0:00:13You know, I've been finding it much harder to know what to write about,
0:00:13 > 0:00:15and I think it's partly cos I don't do anything.
0:00:15 > 0:00:17I just do gigs or look after kids.
0:00:17 > 0:00:20And I don't want to do what all the other comics of my age do,
0:00:20 > 0:00:23which is to just sort of come out and remember their childhood
0:00:23 > 0:00:24in a regional accent.
0:00:24 > 0:00:26LAUGHTER
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Hey, do you remember gripping-hands Action Man?
0:00:32 > 0:00:34And no, I had one of them, gripping-hands Action Man.
0:00:34 > 0:00:36I say gripping-hands, it was the 1970s,
0:00:36 > 0:00:39it was more like wandering-hands Action Man.
0:00:41 > 0:00:44But we mustn't judge Action Man by the values of today.
0:00:44 > 0:00:46LAUGHTER
0:00:46 > 0:00:49Note how my attempt at a parody of generic Live At The Apollo
0:00:49 > 0:00:52nostalgia material is in of itself superior to the real thing.
0:00:54 > 0:00:58But still, the years pass, the call never comes.
0:00:59 > 0:01:00So...
0:01:00 > 0:01:01LAUGHTER
0:01:03 > 0:01:07Well, I'll do some remembering-childhood stuff,
0:01:07 > 0:01:11cos it's sort of a generic thing of stand-up.
0:01:11 > 0:01:14People normally enjoy this, so...
0:01:15 > 0:01:19In 1973,
0:01:19 > 0:01:21when I was five years old...
0:01:22 > 0:01:24..I was...
0:01:24 > 0:01:28I was kicked into a urinal trough
0:01:28 > 0:01:33and I was urinated on at length
0:01:33 > 0:01:37by a boy called Matt Clitheroe,
0:01:37 > 0:01:40and the other boys in my class
0:01:40 > 0:01:42at Brook Street Infant School in Solihull.
0:01:42 > 0:01:45Matt Clitheroe started it, and he was
0:01:45 > 0:01:49urinating on me and laughing, and then he...
0:01:49 > 0:01:53Uh...he called all the other boys over, and they were all
0:01:53 > 0:01:56urinating on me, laughing, and, er...
0:01:58 > 0:02:01I was five, I was a little boy and I was...
0:02:02 > 0:02:07..in a urinal trough, and my eyes were stinging,
0:02:07 > 0:02:10some urine had gone in my mouth.
0:02:12 > 0:02:14And I was...
0:02:14 > 0:02:17all wet and I was frightened as well.
0:02:17 > 0:02:19But I have to admit,
0:02:19 > 0:02:22looking back, if I'm honest,
0:02:22 > 0:02:24on some level,
0:02:24 > 0:02:26I did enjoy the experience.
0:02:26 > 0:02:28LAUGHTER
0:02:33 > 0:02:37Not the experience of being urinated on in and of itself.
0:02:37 > 0:02:41I didn't enjoy that. But what I did enjoy -
0:02:41 > 0:02:42and this is interesting, I think,
0:02:42 > 0:02:46in the light of what's happened in my life - what I did enjoy, I think,
0:02:46 > 0:02:49was the experience of
0:02:49 > 0:02:51provoking laughter in others.
0:02:51 > 0:02:52LAUGHTER
0:02:54 > 0:02:56I know. I mean...
0:02:56 > 0:02:58HE INHALES
0:02:58 > 0:02:59Yeah. Er...
0:02:59 > 0:03:03OK, I've not been in therapy or anything like that,
0:03:03 > 0:03:05but you know,
0:03:05 > 0:03:09I wondered, did that experience go on to be addictive, you know?
0:03:12 > 0:03:15I may have been lying in a urinal trough,
0:03:15 > 0:03:18covered in hot urine and crying,
0:03:18 > 0:03:20but on some level
0:03:20 > 0:03:22it was show business.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24LAUGHTER
0:03:26 > 0:03:28And I think back over my adult life -
0:03:28 > 0:03:3226 years of doing this five, six nights a week, and I...
0:03:32 > 0:03:34You know, I've not been in therapy, as I say,
0:03:34 > 0:03:38but I wonder, has my whole adult life
0:03:38 > 0:03:40been just an ongoing attempt to try
0:03:40 > 0:03:44to recapture, night after night,
0:03:44 > 0:03:49that...first amazing taste of what it means...
0:03:49 > 0:03:50LAUGHTER
0:03:52 > 0:03:54..to be a creative artist.
0:03:54 > 0:03:55LAUGHTER
0:03:58 > 0:04:01I don't know. I think about it a lot, I don't know. I mean, I...
0:04:02 > 0:04:05OK, I don't have any problem with urinal troughs.
0:04:05 > 0:04:07I go up and down the motorways doing gigs
0:04:07 > 0:04:12and I use the urinal troughs in the service stations.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15You know, it's fine. But what I...
0:04:15 > 0:04:17What I have noticed now
0:04:17 > 0:04:20is there's now no longer enough pressure in my bladder
0:04:20 > 0:04:24to force my urine out across the one-inch gap
0:04:24 > 0:04:27between the tip of my penis
0:04:27 > 0:04:30and the rim of any standard wall-mounted
0:04:30 > 0:04:33service station urinal trough. And...
0:04:35 > 0:04:38..you know, it wasn't always the case. I mean, once,
0:04:38 > 0:04:40the jet of my urine was...
0:04:40 > 0:04:43it was powerful, it was accurate.
0:04:45 > 0:04:47It was like a riot control water cannon.
0:04:50 > 0:04:52Now it's like a crop sprayer.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56LAUGHTER
0:04:58 > 0:04:59Descends in a fine mist.
0:05:02 > 0:05:03Toxic to weasels.
0:05:03 > 0:05:05LAUGHTER
0:05:09 > 0:05:12Do you know, I remember once I fractured my arm.
0:05:12 > 0:05:16I was blowing bubbles on the step of a static caravan
0:05:16 > 0:05:19in a place called Beer in South Devon,
0:05:19 > 0:05:22and I slipped on the bubble mixture and I fractured my arm.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26And my grandad took me into hospital in Exeter
0:05:26 > 0:05:28and I was in traction for a month,
0:05:28 > 0:05:31and one day my grandad gave me a little pot
0:05:31 > 0:05:34to urinate into in the bed,
0:05:34 > 0:05:36but I sort of missed the rim of it,
0:05:36 > 0:05:40and the jet of my urine was so powerful
0:05:40 > 0:05:43that it actually hit my grandad,
0:05:43 > 0:05:47who was standing five feet away,
0:05:47 > 0:05:48fully in the face.
0:05:48 > 0:05:49LAUGHTER
0:05:51 > 0:05:53(Watch this.)
0:05:54 > 0:05:56I was 28 years old.
0:05:56 > 0:05:57LAUGHTER
0:06:04 > 0:06:06OK, what you can feel at home,
0:06:06 > 0:06:08you can feel the unease in the room, and the pr...
0:06:08 > 0:06:10OK, what's happened is,
0:06:10 > 0:06:13these tickets have gone through the BBC Ticket Unit, right?
0:06:13 > 0:06:17So people that have seen me before, which is these people here, right?
0:06:17 > 0:06:19They're laughing throughout cos they know
0:06:19 > 0:06:22that I wouldn't just do half an hour on urine, right?
0:06:22 > 0:06:25So they're assuming that it's about something else
0:06:25 > 0:06:28or there's some sort of subtext or it's about nostalgia
0:06:28 > 0:06:30or memory or whatever. But a lot of these people -
0:06:30 > 0:06:32and I try every year to make it harder for them to get in,
0:06:32 > 0:06:34but they come... LAUGHTER
0:06:34 > 0:06:37they're just liggers that apply through the BBC ticket unit.
0:06:37 > 0:06:38They don't know what they've come to
0:06:38 > 0:06:42and they've brought nothing to the table, right? And they're thinking,
0:06:42 > 0:06:44"Oh, I won't listen to this cos it's just about urine."
0:06:44 > 0:06:46But it's not. And it...
0:06:46 > 0:06:50What I've tried to do is I've shown you, right -
0:06:50 > 0:06:53I'm trying to get you to buy into a story, right?
0:06:53 > 0:06:57But if it's, like, just shit little stupid crap jokes that you want,
0:06:57 > 0:07:00I can go, "Oh, I was 28 years old," like that,
0:07:00 > 0:07:04and I can make you laugh and I can do it at will like that, OK?
0:07:04 > 0:07:07I can turn on a sixpence and do it.
0:07:07 > 0:07:10But I'm trying to do something better, OK?
0:07:10 > 0:07:13And this is being recorded and you are here as a privilege
0:07:13 > 0:07:16so fucking make some effort and listen.
0:07:16 > 0:07:19LAUGHTER
0:07:19 > 0:07:22Right, there's a guy... At the very point where I say,
0:07:22 > 0:07:24"Make some effort and listen,"
0:07:24 > 0:07:28there's a guy stubbling over to sneak out, right?
0:07:28 > 0:07:30In front of my eye line, right?
0:07:30 > 0:07:33And that's not going to make good telly, is it?
0:07:33 > 0:07:37A bloke flailing around while people visibly leave in camera.
0:07:37 > 0:07:38LAUGHTER
0:07:50 > 0:07:52Look, my grandad, he wasn't that bothered.
0:07:52 > 0:07:54This was...
0:07:54 > 0:07:58a man who'd been shot at by Nazi fighter planes
0:07:58 > 0:08:01when he was RAF ground crew in World War II.
0:08:01 > 0:08:04I mean, he'd looked death in the eye. To him,
0:08:04 > 0:08:07child's urine off his old man's face
0:08:07 > 0:08:10was just water off a duck's back.
0:08:13 > 0:08:15Or a child's urine off an old man's face.
0:08:18 > 0:08:21Which became a figure of speech in our family...
0:08:21 > 0:08:22LAUGHTER
0:08:25 > 0:08:27..used to describe anything of no consequence.
0:08:32 > 0:08:36"A traffic warden was rude to me in Mell Square today, Stu."
0:08:38 > 0:08:40LAUGHTER
0:08:42 > 0:08:44"Were you upset, Gran?"
0:08:45 > 0:08:47"Not really, no.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50"It were child's urine off an old man's face."
0:08:54 > 0:08:57"A fella tooted at me for driving too slow on the Digbeth Flyover
0:08:57 > 0:08:59"this morning, Stu."
0:09:00 > 0:09:02"Were you upset, Grandad?"
0:09:02 > 0:09:05"Not really, no.
0:09:05 > 0:09:07"It were child's urine off an old man's face."
0:09:11 > 0:09:14"I saw a child urinating onto a duck's back
0:09:14 > 0:09:15"in Cannon Hill Park today."
0:09:15 > 0:09:17LAUGHTER
0:09:21 > 0:09:23"Was the duck upset, Mum?"
0:09:26 > 0:09:28"Not upset, exactly, Stu.
0:09:28 > 0:09:32"To be honest, I'm not sure how best to describe its emotional state."
0:09:32 > 0:09:33LAUGHTER
0:09:38 > 0:09:41They're still doing the main amount of work here, aren't they?
0:09:44 > 0:09:47You, mate, with the beard - you're a dead weight in this room.
0:09:47 > 0:09:50You are. And you're right in my eye line. You're a dead weight.
0:09:50 > 0:09:54There are cackling sycophants that would have loved that seat.
0:09:54 > 0:09:55LAUGHTER
0:10:03 > 0:10:06I've got another, um...
0:10:06 > 0:10:09happy childhood memory involving my grandfather and urine.
0:10:11 > 0:10:15About two years after I urinated into my grandad's face
0:10:15 > 0:10:19in Exeter, down in the West Country there,
0:10:19 > 0:10:24my mother took my grandad and I on holiday to Malta,
0:10:24 > 0:10:28and while we were there, we were both urinating together
0:10:28 > 0:10:31into a kind of ceramic urinal trough
0:10:31 > 0:10:35on the floor of a quite ornate public urinal in Malta,
0:10:35 > 0:10:39and there were big, black Maltese flies buzzing around
0:10:39 > 0:10:41the twin streams of our urine,
0:10:41 > 0:10:45and my grandad - who'd been in the RAF, remember -
0:10:45 > 0:10:48he started trying to sort of shoot down the flies...
0:10:48 > 0:10:50LAUGHTER
0:10:56 > 0:10:58..saying to me as he did so,
0:10:58 > 0:11:00"I like to pretend they're Germans."
0:11:00 > 0:11:01LAUGHTER
0:11:03 > 0:11:06You know, for a lot of men of his generation, I think in many ways
0:11:06 > 0:11:07the war never really ended.
0:11:07 > 0:11:08LAUGHTER
0:11:12 > 0:11:15Still just you, isn't it? It's still just you. Do you know what?
0:11:15 > 0:11:18I've been running this in live for about six months
0:11:18 > 0:11:20and there is normally applause there,
0:11:20 > 0:11:25and it is fucking Sod's law that the night you come to record it
0:11:25 > 0:11:28it's just one pocket of people going...
0:11:29 > 0:11:33That's why I always drink the water at this point,
0:11:33 > 0:11:37cos I drink the water sort of magnanimously
0:11:37 > 0:11:39while I wait for the...
0:11:39 > 0:11:40LAUGHTER AND SCATTERED APPLAUSE
0:11:40 > 0:11:42Don't, no! Don't...
0:11:42 > 0:11:45APPLAUSE No, no, no.
0:11:45 > 0:11:47No.
0:11:47 > 0:11:51No. We play the hand we are dealt in this game, right?
0:11:52 > 0:11:57Play the room as it lays, right?
0:12:00 > 0:12:02What the fucking...? Unbelievable.
0:12:02 > 0:12:04It's a good routine, this.
0:12:04 > 0:12:08This is... Right, there's a lot of scepticism in the room,
0:12:08 > 0:12:11you particularly, sir. You've not...
0:12:11 > 0:12:13People in the front row going, "Uh..."
0:12:13 > 0:12:17This is a good bit, right? The problem is you're not...
0:12:24 > 0:12:27This plays into your...what you think of us as well, doesn't it?
0:12:27 > 0:12:31You think we're mad, comedians, don't you?
0:12:31 > 0:12:34Sort of crazy desperate figures.
0:12:34 > 0:12:37Sort of low self-esteem, you know,
0:12:37 > 0:12:40wanting the approval of strangers all the time,
0:12:40 > 0:12:43perhaps because of some childhood trauma.
0:12:43 > 0:12:45LAUGHTER
0:12:45 > 0:12:48OK, this is why this is unworkable, right?
0:12:48 > 0:12:52Because there's people... There's a table here
0:12:52 > 0:12:55finding things that aren't there, right?
0:12:55 > 0:12:59And yet here, the beard guy, this front row...
0:12:59 > 0:13:02And yet I'm supposed to steer a course through this.
0:13:05 > 0:13:07I'm glad this has been captured
0:13:07 > 0:13:10because it shows what an impossible...
0:13:12 > 0:13:14Every now and again, it is a very difficult job, this.
0:13:14 > 0:13:17You know, we... Well...
0:13:17 > 0:13:20It's very stressful. We lose a lot of people to the...
0:13:20 > 0:13:22LAUGHTER
0:13:22 > 0:13:25We do. You know, like Hancock and Lenny Bruce,
0:13:25 > 0:13:27all these guys, cos it's...
0:13:27 > 0:13:30You have got a bit, and it always goes, "Bang, bang, bang."
0:13:30 > 0:13:33And then you have a night and you feel it melting under you and you...
0:13:33 > 0:13:35HE BREATHES DEEPLY
0:13:35 > 0:13:38I mean, audiences like you, you know,
0:13:38 > 0:13:40you as good as murdered Robin Williams.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43LAUGHTER
0:13:47 > 0:13:48You did.
0:13:48 > 0:13:51You as good as got the fucking noose and kicked the...
0:13:51 > 0:13:55You did. And this is what you think, isn't it? Right.
0:13:55 > 0:13:58This is what you think. "Oh, Robin Williams, he was mad.
0:13:58 > 0:14:00He must have been on drugs or drunk."
0:14:00 > 0:14:02That's what you think, right?
0:14:02 > 0:14:04You're like journalists. We don't think that, OK?
0:14:04 > 0:14:08We know what it is. It's 60 years of nights like this
0:14:08 > 0:14:11where you've got a thing that's like that and that and that,
0:14:11 > 0:14:12and it's all...
0:14:14 > 0:14:15You know, we lose a lot...
0:14:15 > 0:14:17We lose a lot of people, is all I'm saying.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23A car is a lethal weapon, right?
0:14:23 > 0:14:27You wouldn't get behind the wheel of a car if you couldn't drive,
0:14:27 > 0:14:28would you? No.
0:14:28 > 0:14:32And likewise, a comedy audience, right?
0:14:32 > 0:14:34Chipping away at people's self-esteem,
0:14:34 > 0:14:36that is a lethal weapon, right?
0:14:36 > 0:14:38And you should not be in a comedy audience
0:14:38 > 0:14:42if you can't follow the development of an idea through,
0:14:42 > 0:14:45because there are consequences of your indifference,
0:14:45 > 0:14:46of your stupidity,
0:14:46 > 0:14:49and that is the fucking holocaust
0:14:49 > 0:14:51of dead comics that we have got.
0:14:52 > 0:14:56Lenny Bruce, Robin Williams, Hancock, all these guys.
0:14:58 > 0:15:00And the longer you do it...
0:15:02 > 0:15:04You lose people, you know... And I mean, I...
0:15:07 > 0:15:09I was on a...
0:15:09 > 0:15:14bill in Montreal, '98, '99.
0:15:16 > 0:15:17And it was me...
0:15:17 > 0:15:20For about a month, me, Richard Jeni,
0:15:20 > 0:15:22Mitch Hedberg, who was very good,
0:15:22 > 0:15:26and Stanhope, and...
0:15:28 > 0:15:31You know, within about five years of that gig,
0:15:31 > 0:15:33half the people on that bill were dead, you know?
0:15:36 > 0:15:38Because of you. LAUGHTER
0:15:38 > 0:15:39Well, you know...
0:15:41 > 0:15:44Why would you laugh at that and not at a...
0:15:44 > 0:15:47Why would you laugh at someone remembering people
0:15:47 > 0:15:51that they've worked with who've...and not at a joke...
0:15:52 > 0:15:54..about...flies, you know?
0:15:54 > 0:15:56I don't really...
0:16:03 > 0:16:05I think about them.
0:16:07 > 0:16:08Well...
0:16:10 > 0:16:12I think about all the comics we've lost,
0:16:12 > 0:16:14and I think about all the dead comedians,
0:16:14 > 0:16:16dead by their own hand, and I...
0:16:19 > 0:16:21I think about them every night before...
0:16:21 > 0:16:25before I come on stage, but I do come on stage, and I...
0:16:27 > 0:16:29And I...
0:16:29 > 0:16:33VOICE TREMBLING: I walk out onto these stages every night...
0:16:35 > 0:16:37..through a forest of ghosts...
0:16:37 > 0:16:38LAUGHTER
0:16:43 > 0:16:46..of all the dead...
0:16:46 > 0:16:48comics, and I look through them...
0:16:50 > 0:16:51..and I see you.
0:16:51 > 0:16:53LAUGHTER
0:16:58 > 0:17:00And the worst...
0:17:02 > 0:17:05..ones are the people that I knew.
0:17:08 > 0:17:11Because they're not like ghosts in a film, they're...
0:17:13 > 0:17:16They're just in the clothes they wore
0:17:16 > 0:17:18when I knew them, and they...
0:17:19 > 0:17:22They stand just like they would have stood at the bar
0:17:22 > 0:17:24in Edinburgh or whatever...
0:17:27 > 0:17:30..and they come up to me on this side, some of them...
0:17:31 > 0:17:35..and they say to me, "Oh, don't let them get you down, you know?"
0:17:35 > 0:17:37LAUGHTER
0:17:43 > 0:17:45Ones on this side, they come in,
0:17:45 > 0:17:48close,
0:17:48 > 0:17:51and they whisper to me,
0:17:51 > 0:17:54("Join us, join us, join us.")
0:17:54 > 0:17:56LAUGHTER
0:18:07 > 0:18:10LAUGHTER
0:18:20 > 0:18:21Anyway...
0:18:22 > 0:18:25The Maltese flies...
0:18:25 > 0:18:26LAUGHTER
0:18:26 > 0:18:29Look, I'm just going to finish this bit,
0:18:29 > 0:18:32cos I don't want you all going on fucking social media and going
0:18:32 > 0:18:35"Oh, then he went mad and he didn't finish the..."
0:18:37 > 0:18:38I'll just finish this bit.
0:18:41 > 0:18:42(Finish this bit.)
0:18:45 > 0:18:46LAUGHTER
0:18:54 > 0:18:55LAUGHTER
0:19:07 > 0:19:08LAUGHTER
0:19:16 > 0:19:18The Maltese flies...
0:19:20 > 0:19:23..weren't that bothered about all the...
0:19:23 > 0:19:24the stuff going on them.
0:19:26 > 0:19:28To them it was just...
0:19:28 > 0:19:30LAUGHTER
0:19:31 > 0:19:33SHOUTING: Is that what it takes, is it?!
0:19:33 > 0:19:34LAUGHTER
0:19:34 > 0:19:36APPLAUSE
0:19:36 > 0:19:38Is that what it takes
0:19:38 > 0:19:41to get you and you
0:19:41 > 0:19:42and you?
0:19:47 > 0:19:50HE SHOUTS AND SWEARS INDISTINCTLY
0:19:52 > 0:19:54To think ahead of the curve,
0:19:54 > 0:19:59to understand that you hold, in your visibly indifferent hands,
0:19:59 > 0:20:01in your indifferent hands,
0:20:01 > 0:20:05in your bored TV executive complementary table hands,
0:20:05 > 0:20:10a person's living, beating heart?!
0:20:16 > 0:20:18You should have been concentrating like that
0:20:18 > 0:20:21from the moment you came in!
0:20:21 > 0:20:23Fucking sitting there staring at me,
0:20:23 > 0:20:25sitting in the front row not doing anything,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28looking at me like I'm a commodity
0:20:28 > 0:20:30for your dying channel!
0:20:30 > 0:20:33LAUGHTER
0:20:33 > 0:20:35APPLAUSE
0:20:35 > 0:20:40Because there are fucking blokes creeping out in front of you!
0:20:48 > 0:20:53Cos there are consequences of your indifference, and that is the dead!
0:20:53 > 0:20:57The piling up of the dead, now,
0:20:57 > 0:20:59the old music hall guys, people you know,
0:20:59 > 0:21:02and their blood is on you, on your faces,
0:21:02 > 0:21:04pouring down your...
0:21:04 > 0:21:06LAUGHTER
0:21:28 > 0:21:30LAUGHTER
0:21:34 > 0:21:36The Maltese flies...
0:21:36 > 0:21:37LAUGHTER
0:21:39 > 0:21:43..weren't that bothered about all the...going on them.
0:21:43 > 0:21:46To them it was just...
0:21:46 > 0:21:48LAUGHTER
0:21:48 > 0:21:50HE BREATHES HEAVILY
0:21:52 > 0:21:55..an old man's urine off a Maltese fly's...
0:21:55 > 0:21:58SCATTERED APPLAUSE Don't clap, don't clap!
0:21:58 > 0:22:00APPLAUSE
0:22:00 > 0:22:03Don't... What are you...? You're clapping yourselves!
0:22:04 > 0:22:09You're clapping your own ability to follow the development of an idea!
0:22:09 > 0:22:11I take that as a given! That's what you should...
0:22:11 > 0:22:14It's not a fucking treat for me that you've decided to...
0:22:15 > 0:22:17This is being filmed!
0:22:17 > 0:22:18LAUGHTER
0:22:29 > 0:22:33And the worst thing about that memory is my grandad,
0:22:33 > 0:22:36when he was urinating on those flies,
0:22:36 > 0:22:41he was in his late 70s, he'd had a heart attack, a stroke,
0:22:41 > 0:22:43heart valve replacement surgery,
0:22:43 > 0:22:45he was on Warfarin and all this, and...
0:22:45 > 0:22:48and yet the jet of his urine then...
0:22:48 > 0:22:50LAUGHTER
0:22:53 > 0:22:57..was more powerful and accurate than mine is now
0:22:57 > 0:22:58at the age of 47.
0:23:03 > 0:23:06So I went to see the doctor about it and he asked me for a urine sample,
0:23:06 > 0:23:10which I thought was insensitive under the circumstances. LAUGHTER
0:23:12 > 0:23:16So I gave him a sample of my wife's urine instead,
0:23:16 > 0:23:18which I'd been keeping.
0:23:18 > 0:23:19LAUGHTER
0:23:22 > 0:23:25You do, don't you? When you love someone, you keep little things.
0:23:28 > 0:23:30A bit of wedding cake,
0:23:30 > 0:23:34a sample of their urine,
0:23:34 > 0:23:38a picture of them as a younger woman in a bikini on a beach somewhere.
0:23:38 > 0:23:40They don't know you've got it, you found it in a tin.
0:23:40 > 0:23:42LAUGHTER
0:23:45 > 0:23:49She's there in Thailand or somewhere,
0:23:49 > 0:23:53running around happy and laughing with a...
0:23:53 > 0:23:57with another man, not you, a younger, fitter,
0:23:57 > 0:24:01Australian man. A drummer with little six-pack and Speedos and...
0:24:03 > 0:24:06..sitting under a straw umbrella,
0:24:06 > 0:24:08laughing and drinking cocktails.
0:24:12 > 0:24:13But it didn't work out, did it?
0:24:13 > 0:24:14LAUGHTER
0:24:19 > 0:24:21What a shame for you.
0:24:24 > 0:24:25We all like to think, don't we,
0:24:25 > 0:24:28that we make positive choices in life, but...
0:24:28 > 0:24:32but sometimes it's all about which chair you're sitting in
0:24:32 > 0:24:33when the music stops.
0:24:33 > 0:24:34LAUGHTER
0:24:41 > 0:24:44Anyway, the doctor told me I was pregnant, so I had to come clean.
0:24:44 > 0:24:45LAUGHTER
0:24:48 > 0:24:49He said, "It's just age."
0:24:49 > 0:24:52I thought, "47's a bit young to be told something's just age,"
0:24:52 > 0:24:56but I know that I'm falling apart. Since I last performed here,
0:24:56 > 0:24:58I've been told I'm going deaf
0:24:58 > 0:25:01and I've got to wear hearing aids. I've got them in tonight.
0:25:01 > 0:25:03I've been wearing them this year.
0:25:04 > 0:25:06It's a bit weird being told,
0:25:06 > 0:25:1025 years into a stand-up career,
0:25:10 > 0:25:12that you've got to wear hearing aids.
0:25:13 > 0:25:16For example, I developed this cold, distant, arrogant stage persona
0:25:16 > 0:25:20because I'd assumed audiences didn't really appreciate what I was doing.
0:25:20 > 0:25:22LAUGHTER
0:25:27 > 0:25:29Turns out the gigs have been going very well.
0:25:29 > 0:25:31LAUGHTER
0:25:33 > 0:25:34APPLAUSE
0:25:34 > 0:25:35Yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:25:40 > 0:25:44I thought I was a hard-to-understand outsider artist, but...
0:25:44 > 0:25:47apparently I'm incredibly mainstream.
0:25:47 > 0:25:48LAUGHTER
0:25:50 > 0:25:53Audiences even like it when I'm rude to them.
0:25:54 > 0:25:55They love it.
0:25:56 > 0:25:58To them, it's just...
0:25:58 > 0:26:00LAUGHTER
0:26:05 > 0:26:06But I wasn't always this popular.
0:26:06 > 0:26:09Once I was kicked into a urinal trough and urinated on.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13But it made me what I am, I suppose.
0:26:19 > 0:26:25MUSIC: Miserere By Gregorio Allegri
0:28:18 > 0:28:20This is this. You go, "It's not that."
0:28:20 > 0:28:22They can say it isn't this, but it is.
0:28:22 > 0:28:25- This is this.- You've spent 25 years honing your craft
0:28:25 > 0:28:29- and you're just reduced to saying, "This is this."- This is this. Yeah.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32And you can't even really prove that, can you?
0:28:32 > 0:28:34- Well, it is.- You just have to insist that this is this.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37You've written loads of material and you've done loads and loads of gigs
0:28:37 > 0:28:41all over the country, and the best you can offer anyone is, "What I'm saying is, this is this."
0:28:41 > 0:28:45There'll be people sitting at home going, "Oh, look at that. It isn't that."
0:28:45 > 0:28:47- I go, "It is th... This!" - How do you know?
0:28:47 > 0:28:48That's a straw man.
0:28:48 > 0:28:50Who on earth is sitting at home going,
0:28:50 > 0:28:53- "Look at that, it isn't that." - BOTH LAUGHING
0:28:53 > 0:28:55- What evidence have you got? - They might be.
0:28:55 > 0:28:58They might be! So I'm going to build a whole career
0:28:58 > 0:29:01to refute what I imagine somebody might be thinking.
0:29:01 > 0:29:03- This...- Yeah.- This is this.
0:29:03 > 0:29:06You keep saying that. It doesn't sound any better.
0:29:06 > 0:29:07BOTH LAUGHING
0:29:07 > 0:29:10There's all sorts of things they can...
0:29:10 > 0:29:12This is happening again now.
0:29:12 > 0:29:14This is...
0:29:14 > 0:29:16Hang on. But is this happening?
0:29:16 > 0:29:19- I've lost track of what this is now. - Well...
0:29:19 > 0:29:21Last time this happened, I felt I should intervene.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24Now I feel like I've literally got no tools to deploy.
0:29:24 > 0:29:27Again, right. It's two years of work.
0:29:27 > 0:29:31It's two years of work. I've been gigging six nights a week
0:29:31 > 0:29:34for two years to get all this together.
0:29:34 > 0:29:36People go, "Oh, it's not as good as last time.
0:29:36 > 0:29:39"You know, he's done this, that doesn't make any sense."
0:29:39 > 0:29:41Well, fine, right?
0:29:41 > 0:29:43All those things might be true,
0:29:43 > 0:29:45but this is this.